Just for fun, I wanted to list some of the more popular social media influencers and thought leaders and find their nearest superhero counterparts. While I found it exciting and would allow me to stray – even just for a bit – from the usually serious stuff, I was faced with a conundrum: which superhero group will I compare these people to?

DC? Marvel? Will it be an eclectic mix that will also include some characters from Japanese manga (who gets to be Goku?)? The questions are endless.

I was leaning towards Marvel since I have always been more of a Marvel fan than anything else, when I asked myself: What makes a superhero, well, super?

Many people would say it’s the power to do things that go far beyond the skills of normal humans. You know, like self-regeneration, being invisible, flying, and dodging bullets. The problem with this is, it discounts an entire category of heroes – those without ingrained powers. But then again, there are some people (outside of Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark) who, despite not having super powers, still have a huge impact not only in the lives of people but in society in general.

I mean, if you can convince people to think along your line of thinking or lead them to make a critical decision that affects the lives of thousands of others, then you must be the superhero-kind-of-powerful, right?

So I conceded to my inner self. These people may not fly or shape-shift or move things with their minds, but individually (and metaphorically), they move other people.

Collectively, they shake the world. They are the world of marketing’s powers-that-be.

Disclaimer:

These influencers are categorized according to perceived strengths, weaknesses, and other intangibles only the writer understands. The “weakness” part is supposed to be a joke – it is not meant to poke fun at any person on the list. More importantly, the opinions are of the writer’s himself and does not represent that of his company.

If you look at the numbers, social influencers don’t need any more attention. Between them, there are already millions of followers who view their original, enticing digital content, which in turn help shape consumers’ purchasing decisions. Imagine how much cash they move!

But, we mortals can never have too much of a good thing, so we bring them back.
Some are fixtures in the pantheon of the gods of digital marketing, while some are beginning to establish themselves as the heirs to the thrones. And because it’s more fun to look at them in a different light – that is, as people with preternatural powers – we decided to present them to you, superhero-style, complete with strengths and weaknesses. And mottos, for good measure. Have fun!

Jason Amunwa

Jason is a marketing strategist, designer and WordPress zealot at JaffyDesigns. Also an improv comedian. And sci-fi lover. And videogame connoisseur.

What I think: Respected marketing strategist, can create awesome content sliders in minutes with no code, gets inspiration while taking a shower, very funny (says you’re 77% likely to laugh when you see his face)

Sean Gardner

Sean is co-founder of the pioneering, Huffington Post “Twitter Powerhouses Series”, which has interviewed hundreds of people in diverse fields. Formerly of Apple, Inc. and Microsoft, Sean has delivered results for multi-national corporations, non-profits and small businesses, and has been a ghost writer and new media manager for celebrities. He is an influential voice in the social media conversation.

What I think: really influential (#1 spot in Forbes’ The Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers in 2013), great at branding, digital storytelling, has tons of experience through his travels

Weakness: not sure whether it was POTUS who followed him back on twitter or a White House intern

Philosophy: connect people to help them produce the greatest possible impact for bettering humanity

Motto: Dream big. (According to a Huff Post article, the first person he followed on Twitter was POTUS.)

Kim Garst

Kim is the Founder and CEO of Boom! Social, a personal branding and social media business consulting firm. She is the author of “The Quick and Easy Guide to Branding Your Business and Creating Massive Sales with Pinterest”.

What I Think: expert at personal branding and social media business consulting, authentic, amazing woman (being able to juggle all these while being named one of the Top 200 Leading Moms in Business is nothing short of amazing)

Weakness: hockey

Philosophy:People buy from people they know, like and trust and social media is the greatest tool I have EVER seen at building those three things at lightning speed and at that scale.

Adrienne Smith

Adrienne Smith A respected blogger who became an “Engagement Superstar”, a self-confessed people person. She just recently retired from blogging, but still regularly updates her blogging course, “How to Build a Blog Community”.

What I think: genuine, very grounded, believes in creating her own sphere of influence and it has worked positively for her

Weakness: Too nice in a dog-eat-dog industry

Philosophy:Give and give and give without asking for anything in return.

Jeff Bullas

Jeff is a social media marketing blogger, keynote speaker, digital strategist, consultant and bestselling author. His blog which is found at jeffbullas.com is about all things to do with social media, content and digital marketing.

What I think: very good at what he does, respected in the industry, consistently voted no. 1 content marketing influencer

Weakness: List of achievements is too long!

Philosophy: To assist business in “getting found online” in a digital world and making you visible and successful on a crowded web.

https://www.callboxinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Untitled-design.png352800Rom Agustinhttps://www.callboxinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/callbox-logo.pngRom Agustin2016-03-29 09:35:072016-03-29 07:09:45Why Best Actor Leonardo DiCaprio is “King of the World” After his Speech at Oscars

https://www.callboxinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/12-Experts-That-Will-Teach-You-How-to-Get-More-Leads_DONE.jpg352800Vivien Reyeshttps://www.callboxinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/callbox-logo.pngVivien Reyes2015-11-18 07:45:532017-01-24 14:26:2412 Experts That Will Teach You How to Get More Leads

For those who need numbers to see things more clearly, according to research, between 50 and 75 percent of the success of a B2B marketing campaign is down to the accuracy of the data available.

Businesses also rely increasingly on Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems – software that retains every lead, every sales opportunity and every contact record.Companies invest thousands of dollars (and man-hours) in obtaining leads that allow them to generate profit.

“But what happens a year later, when it’s time to sell something new and the data in your software is not reliable?”

The Acceleration of Decay

HubSpot published an interesting study on marketing databases. By using simulation, it found that business databases naturally degrade by 22.5 percent per annum. In another study, NetProspex reported that data decay occurs at a rate of around 2 percent per month. Its president, Michael Bird, calls this problem a “huge potential nightmare” for B2B marketers.

Donato Diorio, process automation specialist and Interim CEO of another tech company, Ringlead, claims data decay occurs at a rate of between 2.8-5.5% per month, or around 36% every year (I don’t know how they came up with 36%, but obviously, it isn’t as simple as simple addition). Either way, both numbers look grim.

That’s a contact that your business invested in, and a contact that could have yielded your next big sale.

Worse, this rate of decay is compounded over time. A healthy database with tens of thousands of contacts could be useless within half a decade.

“Look at it this way,” Bird said, “if you have 100,000 records in your database and you don’t do anything to update and maintain them, in four years they’re gone.”

Businesses grow, change, shrink, go bust, merge and split into new businesses. People grow, change and move on. It’s about time we guarded our software against data decay.

Causes of Database Decay

The most visible cause of data corruption is poor data entry. If there are no rules defining how data is entered into your information systems, inconsistencies will inevitably fester. Another is data migration—when information from one system or application is moved to another. Then, there’s what we call data mergers—when data is combined from different sources into a master file. Data consolidation—when companies attempt to eliminate redundant data.

Add to these the fact that people move jobs, and they rarely take their email address with them. If you lose contact with one person, you effectively lose contact with their organization as a whole. Even if you have a personal email address for a valued contact, the contact probably won’t retain it for more than a couple of years

Solution

Obviously, nobody can prevent this from happening. However, there are certain ways to mitigate the risks of database decay? Basically, it involves a continuous process of collecting the best customer data from reliable sources, identifying the most potential value for clients and refining those contacts into the most relevant contact information and responsibilities within the company.

Keeping decay at bay requires not only a steady flow of inbound leads into your funnel (to replace the existing decay), but also a deep understanding of the contacts in your database and how they engage with your marketing (to stop further decay).

Once or twice a year (or quarterly, if you feel your prospects and clients don’t feel harassed) send an email request to customers and prospects that contain the information you have on them and their company. Request verification. Most individuals will correct their information if it’s inaccurate.

If you’re a small business with less than a thousand clients, you could have a team manually review your database once a year. It could visit every website, telephone every contact and cross match records with public databases. It would cost money and take time, but it’s possible.

Hire an Outbound Telemarketing firm. If your data have decayed badly, it may be cost-effective to hire an outbound telemarketing firm to verify, correct and add additional information. This is particularly cost-justified if you’re selling products or services that have a high dollar value.

https://www.callboxinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Get-More-IT-Leads-The-Things-You-Should-or-Must-Know-About-Email-Marketing.jpg352800Rebecca Matiashttps://www.callboxinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/callbox-logo.pngRebecca Matias2018-03-12 20:00:302018-03-14 02:04:13Get More IT Leads: The Things You Should (or Must) Know About Email Marketing

If your name is easy to pronounce like “Jane”, people will favor you more. They say, men with shorter first names are over represented in the c-suite, e.g. Apple CEO Timothy “Tim” Cook.

Does a name really affect a personality or determine one’s success? If it does, then marketing experts did a great job on multi channel marketing.

Marketers never cease to amaze us. They fused two marketing technologies together: traditional (publications, broadcast, outdoor media, phone, postal, direct) and digital marketing (web/content, social, email, mobile, seo, videos), and came up with a single but broad and innovative strategy called multi channel marketing that provides businesses a more consumer-centric, integrated approach to communication.

Multi channel marketing has been a usable marketing strategy for businesses for quite some time now but only got massive advertisement in the recent years. Despite the short familiarity lag among its audience, it was able to address the multi channel customers’ buying demands.

Check out some digital marketing key statistics, industry benchmarks and some “named” technical jargons that will get you motivated to maximize the best that multi channel marketing has to offer:

#6: SEO

Search is the starting point for 60% of travelers (Search Engine Watch)

81% of B2B purchase cycles start with web search, and 90% of buyers say when they are ready to buy, “they’ll find you.” (Freely.net)

Search is the #1 driver of traffic to content sites, beating social media by more than 300% (IronPaper.com)

60% of all organic clicks go to the organic top 3 search results (HubSpot)

SEO offers a wide range of information and services from personal to business deals – It’s a way for you to find what you search for and get searched by those trying to find you.

Multi Channel Marketing. The name itself speaks of its broad potentialities and powerhouse capabilities for today’s business demands. This blog has only given maybe only a fraction or less of what you need to know about the proven effectiveness of multi channel marketing.

https://www.callboxinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Statistical-Proofs-Show-That-You-Should-Invest-In-Multi-Channel.jpg352800Judy Carollhttps://www.callboxinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/callbox-logo.pngJudy Caroll2016-05-05 03:22:032018-01-03 08:53:57Statistical Proofs Show That You Should Invest In Multi-Channel Marketing [Slides]

Strong word. So strong it should have the right to claim it’s the mother of all words.

Some use it interchangeably with “enthusiasm”. Others simplify it as “positive attitude”. Modern psychologists label it “learned optimism”. But I like it just as it is – passion.

Passion is immeasurable, like it ought to be. But, even though it cannot be quantified, one can say that it diminishes. You just feel it when it wanes, just as you can when there’s a surge of passion in your veins or heart or brain. Generally, we feel the height of passion somewhere between the start and early stages of an activity, and as the euphoria or novelty or excitement of that thing fades, so does our passion for it.

And while it is not a sin, – after all, it is as human a tendency as getting bored – it wouldn’t hurt to be able to maintain one’s passion at something from beginning to end.

There is no magic pill that keeps a person passionately going and going and going and going. Scientists believe it is simply the power of the mind. Fortunately, all of us have minds. The trick is training the mind.

It’s a “mind” thing

If you’re not a positive thinker, if you don’t have a positive attitude, forget about passion.

Without this quality or passion, life and whatever you do with it become quite dull. Things become a chore, a “have to” instead of an opportunity, or a “get to.” For example, the person who doesn’t have passion says such things as: “I have to go to work today … I have to go to the gym … I have to clean the house … or … I have to pay my bills.”

By contrast, a person with passion says, “I get to go to work today,” because he knows that work is so much better than not having any work. A person with passion says, “I get to go to the gym,” because it’s better than being physically incapable to do anything. A person with passion… you get the picture.

Clearly, if you’re not a positive thinker, if you don’t have a positive attitude, there will never be a morsel of passion to start with. And there simply is no substitute for a positive attitude.

Passion keeps you going when others quit and gets you through the toughest times.

Bottom line? A positive attitude translates to passion, and passion is the difference maker.

Don’t let emotions dictate your actions

A writer shares this story in a blogpost:

One day at the gym, there was a coach visiting who had worked with thousands of athletes over his long career, including some nationally-ranked athletes and Olympians.

Because he was popular, he was asked all sorts of questions, among which was, “What’s the difference between the best athletes and everyone else? What do the really successful people do that ordinary people don’t?”

He mentioned the things that you might expect: genes, luck, talent. But the next thing he said surprised the gym-goers around him.

“At some point,” he said, “it comes down to who can handle the boredom of training every day and doing the same routines over and over and over again.”

It sure was a different way of looking into things, but it made perfect sense.

Most of the time people talk about getting motivated and excited to work on their goals. Whether it’s business or sports or just trying to get to the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, you will commonly hear people say things like, “it all comes down to having enough passion.”

Life and views can be so different for empowered people who possessed such passion that inspires others to be passionate too.

As a result, many people get depressed when they lose focus or motivation because they think that successful people have some unstoppable passion and willpower that they seem to be missing. But that’s exactly the opposite of what the coach in the anecdote was saying.

The fact is, even successful people feel the same boredom and the same lack of motivation that everyone else feels.

The best of the best in any field always finds a way to show up, to work through the boredom, and to embrace the daily practice that is required to achieve their goals.

Flashback to the “firsts”

We’ve established earlier that passion is highest at the beginning and/or during the early stages of an activity. Who doesn’t get thrilled during a “first”? Want to bring back the passion that fizzled? All it takes is a trip down memory lane.

Remember your first day on your first job? How you spent the night tossing and turning practicing in your mind what kind of smile you’ll bring to the office, or what one-liners you’ll throw at the guys, or what shirt you’ll wear? And how, when you arrived, you can’t wait to get things started and get things done?

How about the first time you received your first paycheck? Remember the afterglow that the feeling of (finally) becoming a useful citizen gave you? How can you forget how early you came to work the day after you received your first paycheck and how you finished your report two days ahead of the deadline?

How about the first few weeks (or months) of being in a romantic relationship? Ah, there was always that spring in your step, the sparkle in your eye, a musical tone to that voice, and that pleasant disposition. You never seemed to run out of sweet nothings to say cute little romantic gestures to do to your significant other, either. It’s amazing what passion can do.

Now, if you can remember how passionate you were that time, chances are, you can bring it back to the same level today and sustain it, be it in love, in business, or in life in general.

Passion is the energy that keeps us going, that keeps us filled with meaning, and happiness, and excitement, and anticipation. Passion is a powerful force in accomplishing anything you set your mind to, and in experiencing work and life to the fullest extent possible. Yes, passion is the driving force behind success and happiness that allows us all to live better lives.

Remember, passion is all in the mind: think positive thoughts, never allow your emotions to control your actions, and remind yourself how passionate you have always been.

Asia is one of the most unique regions to do business. Awhile back when the west was in an economic turmoil, Asia continued to show potential and thrived. As an emerging market, there is always something surprising that pops up in this region.

Asia is unique because of its capability to mix old and new. While the region refuses to be left behind by modern tactics, it lovingly fuses its old age tradition of building relationships on how they grow their business.

Today, Singapore continues to be a regional presence for multinational companies; Hong Kong is a financial hub for the entire region; India and Philippines are choices for business process outsourcing; Vietnam has a thriving small and medium business segment, and the rest of the region proves to be lucrative as well through improving business policies laid down by their government.

Consequently, Asia is expected to grow 6.1% in 2016 according to Asian Development Bank. With this, there are countless of opportunities for you to do to create a presence in Asia. If this is not what you are after as of yet, you can always do a “scouting” activity prior to deciding whether to push through with Asia or not.

Footprint in Asia

Asia loves its tradition. Don’t be surprised if you encounter this even in business. As a result, these activities might seem outdated but works perfectly well in Asia.

Face to face Event Marketing

The rest of the world is producing webinars and podcasts but Asia takes pride in face to face events. Face to face events have something very important for Asians that a webinar or a podcast cannot do—honest to goodness human interaction. Asians place great importance on judging the business they want to get into by meeting potential business partners personally. To them, integrity can only be judged when hands are shaken and time is allotted.

A bow, handshake, smile, eye to eye contact are just as important as the business itself.

If you’re planning to pull off an event; tradeshow, conference, seminar, webinar and more, you may want to check out events marketing process.

Data gathering

As always, you will need prospect data to introduce your business; it is no different in Asia. Like in developing regions, Asia adheres to anti-spamming laws, so tread carefully. It is best to partner with organizations knowledgeable of these laws.

Data Profiling

Did you know that 35% of business data becomes obsolete every year? tweet this!

While in the process of prospect data gathering, you might as well include a deeper digging of prospect information. In data profiling as opposed to basic data gathering, you have the preference to choose which data you want gathered on top of the basic data. Data profiling is perfect when you need to segment your data. This way, you are able to segment not just on geography or demographics but also on needs, which will come very handy for your sales people later on. Through data profiling, you equip your sales and marketing teams with the right information to be relevant.Here’s more of data profiling and its wonders.

We have seen potential in Asia in terms of investment and that we have also expanded our reach in its countries in 2009 and 2010 in Australia.

Top of mind, these are the just three of the best courses of action you can take to get your business to lift off. Note that we emphasize on data because this is often the most neglected part when expanding. In addition, among other tactics, we chose to recommend a type of personal interaction in Marketing because of Asia’s culture.

SMBs or Small to Mid-sized Businesses are so called due to their employee size and/or financial capacity. Typically, a business with 100 or fewer employees is considered small, while a business with 100-999 employees is medium-sized.

Because of the limitations on their budget and infrastructure, they are often difficult to reach and sell to. But they also have the biggest potential in terms of growth and development.

In this article by Rona Gumban, you’ll know the definite characteristics you should be looking in a qualified lead. Q and A is based on Callbox lead qualification measures.

During campaign Kick Off meetings (a conference call between Callbox and the Client about the campaign requirements and processes), the most important question that Callbox asks the clients are:

“What is a qualified lead for you?” Or “How do you define a qualified lead?”

First, we need to understand what a qualified lead is. Here are the 4Ws and 1H of a qualified lead.

What is a qualified Lead?

– A lead will be considered qualified if the campaign specifications were indicated or heard from the call. The prospect must express a buying signal or verbalize his “need” from the product or services offered by the client.

Who qualifies the Lead?

– The Quality Analyst (QA) is the subject-matter-expert who is responsible in evaluating the Leads based on the campaign specifications. Once the QA qualifies the Lead, he/she submits this to the client.

When should a QA qualify a Lead?

– As soon as a Lead is submitted by the caller the Quality Analyst (QA) should approve it within the day. However, some cases may demand another schedule for evaluation depending on either the urgency of the appointment or upon client’s request.

Where can you find qualified Leads?

– You can find the submitted leads in the QA Lead Editor Tool. Qualified Leads or Successful Leads can be seen or tracked in the Pipeline CRM, tagged as Appointment Set, Lead Completed or Profile Completed – depending on the campaign or client requirement.

How does a Quality Analyst qualify a Lead?

Evaluating a Lead goes through a strict process. From the word itself, there is no room for any blunder that may lead to any untoward action from the client.

1. The QA should have the qualification criteria of each campaign in front of him/her before qualifying a Lead such as:

What is the goal of the campaign?

To set phone or office appointments, to generate leads, or to invite prospects to attend an event (webinar/roadshow/seminar)

Who is the Target DM?

This could be specific by job title or any as long as they can make decisions.

What are the Qualifying Questions?

Considered to be a very important factor as this will give the client/consultant the idea as to how he would customize a proposal for the prospect.

Example Qualifier: Company should have 20 users, 10 computers, etc.

The Probing Questions:

These questions do not necessarily grade the prospect’s qualification because there are no standards set by the client. Probing questions that were answered by the prospect during the call will help our clients understand the prospect’s current set-up. As long as the prospect is interested, regardless of his/her answers, the QA will consider the Lead or Appointment.

Ex: What software are you currently using? (Take note of the software’s brand)

How are you currently managing your IT needs? Is it in-house or outsourced?

Special Instructions from the client: Maybe a calendar schedule for which date and time to set the appointment, notes format, etc.

2. Listen to the FULL call recording while simultaneously checking with the script and campaign information.

3. Take note which items have made the call positive and which ones have negatively impacted the call.

4. Listen to the call recording again to analyze the whole conversation between the caller and the prospect.

5. For doubtful scenarios as to whether to submit the Lead to the client or not (example: the prospect has high interest and has a need but may come short on the required company size), the following actions will help the QA decide:

List down the positive items vs the negative

If the positive items are greater in number than the negative, then the QA will consider the Lead as qualified.

If otherwise, the QA will send the lead back to the caller with notes/advise for possible action steps.

-The last option for contemplating on whether to qualify the Lead as Success or Failed, the QA asks for the other Leaders’ opinions like the TL, PL and the AM. This may also result to the AM communicating with the client if they would consider this opportunity or not.

Callbox values quality, we are meticulous in qualifying each and every lead that we submit to our clients. So if you want qualified and targeted leads, look no further.

Jayden is into Business Development for Callbox, a marketing firm in Singapore that provides lead generation and appointment setting services.

https://www.callboxinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Callbox-Answers-The-4Ws-and-1h-of-a-Qualified-Lead.jpg352800Contributorhttps://www.callboxinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/callbox-logo.pngContributor2015-09-02 13:35:162017-07-19 06:05:56Curated: The 4Ws & 1H of a Qualified Lead [Slides]

As a marketer, part of your day involves knowing the pulse of the B2B landscape. By that, we mean getting a good grasp of current trends and situations. As marketing strategies and lead generation techniques continue to evolve, so too should you continually change your perception of the market to ensure you won’t get left out.

What better way to update your present knowledge about B2B lead generation than some stats we have culled from the deepest corners of the web (actually, from HubSpot.com).

48% of marketers build a new landing page for each marketing campaign. (MarketingSherpa) tweet this!

68% of B2B businesses use landing pages to garner a new sales lead for future conversion. (MarketingSherpa) tweet this!

https://www.callboxinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/B2B-Lead-Generation-by-the-Numbers-Some-Stuff-You-Need-to-Know1.jpg352800Vivien Reyeshttps://www.callboxinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/callbox-logo.pngVivien Reyes2015-08-21 01:07:192018-01-03 08:54:29B2B Lead Generation By The Numbers Some Stuff You Need to Know [Slides]

About Us

Founded in 2004, Callbox is the largest provider of Multi-Touch Multi-Channel Marketing solutions for businesses and organizations worldwide. Its core competencies include Lead Generation, Appointment Setting, Lead Nurturing and Database Services, delivered through its proprietary marketing automation platform, the Callbox Pipeline.

Callbox enables companies to gain a foothold in their priority markets by initiating conversations with prospects through the efficient and intelligent use of targeted touchpoints over six channels: voice, email, social, chat, website and mobile.